In Chinese restaurants we are quite used to ordering our dishes by number, whilst in other restaurants even the wines on the list are allocated a bin number. I must confess that I don’t really enjoy ordering my bottle by number – perhaps I’m just a bit of a wine snob at heart.

In the case of selling to airlines our wines are also allocated numbers, but not for their wine list. They are actually allocated part numbers, perhaps in the same way that they might allocate a number to their replacement nuts and bolts! If you think about it, the use of numbers on our bottles is not that unusual. A huge percentage of the bottles that we buy will have a unique bar code, and if they don’t have this, then they will certainly have a Lot Number that gives us the ability to trace our wine back to a particular bottling, or if needed, back to the exact source of the grapes used in the bottle.

I have no doubt that the part number we print on our airline cartons simply makes it easier for them to track their stock as it moves around the world, although I have never really considered our wine as being a spare part!

In Chinese restaurants we are quite used to ordering our dishes by number, whilst in other restaurants even the wines on the list are allocated a bin number. I must confess that I don’t really enjoy ordering my bottle by number – perhaps I’m just a bit of a wine snob at heart.

In the case of selling to airlines our wines are also allocated numbers, but not for their wine list. They are actually allocated part numbers, perhaps in the same way that they might allocate a number to their replacement nuts and bolts! If you think about it, the use of numbers on our bottles is not that unusual. A huge percentage of the bottles that we buy will have a unique bar code, and if they don’t have this, then they will certainly have a Lot Number that gives us the ability to trace our wine back to a particular bottling, or if needed, back to the exact source of the grapes used in the bottle.

I have no doubt that the part number we print on our airline cartons simply makes it easier for them to track their stock as it moves around the world, although I have never really considered our wine as being a spare part!